


Of Victorious Love

by heartstone



Series: The One That Needed It Most [4]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU Where Annatar Doesn't Betray Eregion, Ainur Are Strange, Fea-bond, M/M, Romance, Second Age, Some Plot, True Love, Visiting the Dwarves I Suppose, Weird Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22429717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstone/pseuds/heartstone
Summary: This night the moonlight was not the only radiance that danced along the blessed stones of that in-between, nor was the moonlight the only thing that gleamed in all the glory of silver.***Annatar embraces Tyelpë with his Fëa.
Relationships: Annatar/Celebrimbor | Telperinquar, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Sauron | Mairon
Series: The One That Needed It Most [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646590
Comments: 5
Kudos: 67





	Of Victorious Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lady_Stesonora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Stesonora/gifts).



> This takes place far into the future of the AU; there will be more before this time to come!

Clair de Lune

(Poem by Paul Verlaine)

***

Your soul is a chosen landscape

Where charming masquerades and dancers are promenading,

Playing the lute and dancing, and almost

Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.

While singing in a minor key

Of victorious love, and the pleasant life

They seem not to believe in their own happiness

And their song blends with the moonlight,

With the sad and beautiful moonlight,

Which sets the birds in the trees dreaming,

And makes the fountains sob with ecstasy,

The slender water streams among the marble statues.

***

High above Celebdil rose the tallest spire of Khazad-dûm, the pinnacle of which the mists and rains below skirted, shading the proud rocky crown of Fanuidhol and obscuring the Endless Stair that connected the loftiest chamber to the root of the mountains. Above the sky opened to eternity, an endless velvet tenebrous bestrewn with stars that shone argent and the pale nimbus of the moon that sent its snowy rays to shimmer streaming across the sighing earth. Suspended above the clouds but tucked beneath the abyss, the chamber was neither worldly nor celestial, but caught between, resting on a thin veil that fluttered the spirit, luring it with sleep and ease to pull from the body and soar along its insubstantial gossamer waves.

This night the moonlight was not the only radiance that danced along the blessed stones of that in-between, nor was the moonlight the only thing that gleamed in all the glory of silver.

Telperinquar, mesmerized, leaned back against a bolster to bathe fully in the balm of aurum that caressed him, that shyly poured from the tower, blooming as it made its way to stand at the centre of the floor. He watched the shape of nimble feet as they twirled through the silk and furs that warmed the stone, watched hips freckled with gold shimmer as he moved under the ethereal glow that flourished from his dusky skin, and he watched, enchanted, as copper sparks scintillated in his hair, fading at the curling ends of satin like the gentle evanescence of a flame’s acme. Annatar metamorphosed before him, body arching and swaying, its familiar forms dimming to the splendor of his soul as he danced.

_“Tyelpë. . .”_

A whisper within his own mind, softly spoken, saturating his thoughts with an adoration that quivered along each branching nerve and the secret bower that sheltered his soul. Warmth lapped at the borders of his flesh, just within sensation but without truly touching him- a memory of a touch, a remnant of fingertips brushing along his arms, his chest, his lips which he parted. A ghost of a breath along his neck and the little hollow there that had been a refuge, withstanding the many years of tears that had spilled from that cherubim’s buried face. Sweetly he trembled.

_“Let me show you all that I am. . .”_

The air infused with the radiance of gold, with blissful, luminous clouds of which spread from the pleasant caper in which Annatar's body- now but an impression of a silhouette- yielded to. His spirit unfolded gracefully in a wreath of amber flame, a mandorla of ever-shifting and subtle tinctures. A slender brush of pink that swirled into the nacreous blues of frost, spiraling into a horn ivory, changing then into the deep majesty of violet and the dauntless vibrancy of red. Each colour built on the hue before it, progressing into a timeless symphony of which came the sound of otherworldly stringed instruments, echoing into the Void. A paradox of a voice- both clear and husky, both high and low- emerged from within, visible as comets of purest, deepest gold that melted adagio into the surrounding sounds of colour.

Entranced to a semi-consciousness, Tyelpë felt as if he too was blurring from reality, glimpsing the eons and eons that swelled from within and without. Beholden to stay on Arda, he could still distantly feel his body gently laid out upon the cushions, could feel the numb pressure of one leg resting atop the other, and the luster of sweat on his skin from their earlier lovemaking. But his heart floated upwards, drifting like a feather falling in reverse, cradled so dearly in the mellifluous Theme of Annatar’s very Being as they were entwined. Their Fëar harmonized in the purest of ecstasies, a duet of white mithril with a brilliant fulvous, a divine unity which left them as one alloy of electrum.

_“. . . Let me show you all that you’ve made me.”_

A murmur Tyelpë couldn’t be sure he heard more than he could be sure he felt. He arched, though he knew his body below did not move, motionless in his transcendence. He became aware, suddenly, that the waves and particles that he swayed with was not just the suggestion of shape and fragrance, of colour and texture, of tone and quality, or of present essence, thought, and intention. It was more than just him and Annatar, here and now. Memories and emotions flooded around him, but did not overwhelm him. They lifted him up on their surface, frothing with warmth about his awareness until he could absorb them one by one, could savor them.

The first image that came to him was of his own hands, alabaster subdued with a blush of pink along his knuckles, the dusk above the lunula of his nails, the impression of the whirling of his fingerprints and the creases of his palm, their various scars and callouses. So lovingly detailed, it seemed as if he were only peering down at them back in his body. But he knew from the queer eddying current around his soul that it was a patchwork of centuries of memories pieced together in an exquisite precision. Their likeness shimmered and faded just as his spirit gasped, as if the reverberation of that exhalation broke through their transient form like ripples through a reflection in once still water.

Next came a feeling, distinct from the embrace about him, a stroke of his own hands playing through tresses of hair, of his slender fingers passing by bouncing curls of burnished sanguine. The light pull of the locks, thousands of silk-spun threads as they were brushed and twirled and glistened now with ruby, with clinohumite and copper. The motions of those hands transmuted within him a certain security, a reassuring warmth that made him shudder through the light around him in white twinkling asters. He understood readily that Annatar had felt safe with each of those touches, that the comfort he had found therein had left its tender brand on his very Fëa. When Tyelpë knew this, the feeling faded.

A collage of memories hovered within his perception, a taste of which tingled his tongue but which he could not fully consume. He could remember what they were only after he saw them and he knew not because he saw, but because he recognized the memories from his own memories. Ephemeral, Tyelpë let the years and years and years that they knew each other overtake him. The first time he saw Annatar, riding under the gates of Ost-in-Edhil aside a saddle-less mare; the first time they forged together, and a nervousness that Tyelpë now realized had been shared; the many nights that he had spent, rocking the Maia as he writhed in the hold of night terrors. They recalled the crackle of the fireplace late into the evening as they scribbled out designs that were never too ambitious; the feeling at once both of being inside the other, or the feeling of fullness; the myriad of emotions that had cascaded over them when Annatar was revealed to not be Annatar, and yet Annatar all along.

Hair tickled his shoulders- or was it Annatar that he was feeling, and was it his own hair he felt tickling the Maia’s shoulders? A continuum of sentiment that morphed and shifted into an image of the Maia beneath his warm body, head tipped back in sensual joy, bruises along his straining neck and clavicles, the sound of his highest praises drifting up to him, pouring into his ears and spreading like a warm drink into the tributaries that lead to the deep well of his heart. The smell of spices and cinnamon and the tingle of metal, of peppercorn and the sweet slow burst of brown sugar and honey. The bedimmed recall of hips, and a rocking motion that faltered at approaching bliss. A press of impatient lips, a peal of laughter, an embrace at the sound of sobbing. . .

But one thing united each fleeting memory, each whisper, each lingering perfume and trace of touch. And though it need not be spoken he knew that the song and light and smell and _feel_ of everything around him was one long sentence of Ainur-speech, one which he could lose himself to in the most sublime of euphorias:

_“I loveth thee greater than thou canst perceive, Telperinquar.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Optional: Listening to the Clair de Lune "Ethereal Remix" on youtube while reading this.  
> So I had zero plot in mind, but I really wanted something written just as a testament to how powerful their love could have been had other events not occurred in the Silmarillion. That and I like writing flowery things.  
> I would not have written this had Lady_Stesonora not left their beautiful comments on my previous Silvergifting works, so thank you so much for resurrecting my muse a bit with your enthusiasm for this pair! I know this one was a little more "abstract" but I really hope you enjoyed reading it! <3  
> (Also, I still want whatever prompts you had in mind!)  
> ***


End file.
